Why this Blog ?
News articles in the Wide World of Web, quite often disappear with time, when they are relocated as archives with a different url. Archives in this blog serve as a library for those who are interested in doing Research on Aadhaar Related Topics. Articles are published with details of original publication date and the url.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholarUsha Ramanathandescribes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the#BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Sunday, May 7, 2017

11260 - With Aadhaar, government shows it wants to push India down a dark hole - Daily O.In

Digital India is increasingly looking like a place where our virtual shadows are more empowered than our physical bodily selves. Armed with a number that is supposedly unique, and tied to a scan of body parts such as fingerprints or the iris, the government wants to prove that now it has the capability to connect each and every available public and private service, facility and activity to Aadhaar, all in the name of official efficiency and transparency.

Only, that number has been found to be leaking from more and more government-owned websites, while private entities have been caught selling the precious Aadhaar data for profit.

In other words, the very panacea that the government thinks it has developed to smoothen state functioning is the one that is a digital ticking time bomb, something that could be at the heart of massive cyber security breaches simply waiting to happen.

As the Aadhaar-PAN mandatory link case was heard over a two-week period in the Supreme Court, what became evident was not how the government intends to improve its functioning via Aadhaar, but rather, how condescendingly it views the fundamental rights of the citizens it’s supposed to govern with their consent.

And that much of everything to do with Aadhaar infringes on a number of citizens’ rights and civil liberties is a virtual non-issue for the government, something it can just brazen out, refuse to acknowledge and thereby make it disappear from public conversation.

For the government, a citizen’s fingerprints, iris scans and other unspecified future additions to UID (unique identity) are more important than the citizen herself/himself; the digital copies of body parts tied to UID of far greater significance than the citizen’s right to absolute bodily integrity. In other words, “I’m UID’d, therefore, I exist”. Not the other way round.

Aadhaar-PAN mandatory link

The Supreme Court hearing is about Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act, a new amendment that was brought in surreptitiously via the Finance Bill, 2017. According to Section 139AA, the submission of Aadhaar, the 12-digit biometrics-based UID number for residents of India, would be compulsory to file income tax returns, and to obtain and retain the Permanent Account Number (PAN).

Unless the SC stays it or overturns the ruling, it would be a penal offence from July 1, 2017 to not submit one’s Aadhaar/UID number, or at least proof of enrolment, in order to pay income taxes in India.

In other words, not having Aadhaar would effectively be a criminal offence because it would turn perfectly law-abiding, tax-paying citizens into non-compliant ones on account of not having been able to pay one’s taxes.

Therefore, Section 139AA discriminates between citizens having Aadhaar and citizens who choose not to have one by effectively turning the latter into non-tax-paying criminals.

Essentially, Aadhaar-PAN mandatory link violates Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to equality.

The Aadhaar-PAN mandatory link is a patently illegal and unconstitutional demand by the government, and the petitioners have challenged it on constitutional grounds. But the significance of the Aadhaar-PAN mandatory link case is not just limited to its immediate context, which in itself is huge.

It has a direct bearing on a number of issues connected to citizen’s right to bodily integrity, “informational self-determination”, personal autonomy, choice, equality before eyes of law, and of course the right to privacy, a core issue from which the petitioners were compelled to decouple the current hearing.

Aadhaar infringes on a number of citizens’ rights and civil liberties.

Electronic leash

Advocates Shyam Divan and Aravind Datar, the petitioners’ counsel, emphasised that Aadhaar acts as an “electronic leash” and creates potential for constant and continuous surveillance by the state.

The UID is intended to be connected to almost each and every facility and service, whether government or commercial, and is fast becoming a prerequisite to conduct any digital and other transaction as citizens or residents of the country.

Even though the Aadhaar Act 2016 specifies clearly that Aadhaar is voluntary, the government is making the UID an integral part of every aspect of being a resident/citizen of the country.

In stark contravention of the very law from which it stems, Aadhaar is either flouting the norms that guarantee its voluntary nature, or is hiding behind the largely nebulous nature of the law itself, particularly the vague phrasings, to create conditions in which it is made mandatory for availing services via countless tiny but incremental gazette notifications.

This is unprecedented. No other country has a unique identity based on one’s biometrics that is essentially the one-stop entry pass for being a citizen/resident of a place.

The social security number in the United States is not even remotely close to the gargantuan powers that Aadhaar in effect has over the lives of citizens. Moreover, SSN isn’t biometrics-based and it doesn’t even have a photograph connected to it, forget being tied to each and every service.

Access versus Aadhaar

Instead of being a tool to ease out access, Aadhaar is fast becoming a hurdle for public distribution system and citizens’ right to access government facilities and welfare services. In Jharkhand, many have been sent back without crucial food rations because the Aadhaar couldn’t be authenticated on the POS machines.

This, despite the beneficiaries having enrolled and received their Aadhaar numbers in lieu of the biometrics such as fingerprints and iris scans. In some cases, the MGNREGA wages were transferred to someone else’s account, and many have gone unpaid because errors in Aadhaar linking have left them without any wage support.

Coercion, too, is becoming a big factor. Aadhaar is being issued to newborn babies in Haryana even before they are being birth certificates. Delhi government schools are asking students to enroll for Aadhaar if they wish to study at state-aided institutions. They are shutting doors to migrant children. Mid-day meals would be denied to students from poor backgrounds and children would be made to go hungry if they fail to produce Aadhaar after July 1.

On these pages we had earlier asked, what kind of government wants kids to go hungry because they don’t have the voluntary-mandatory unique identity?

State control on body

When it was the government’s turn to defend Aadhaar from the grave allegations made by the petitioners, the attorney general of India, Mukul Rohatgi, questioned whether bodily integrity is absolute.

He furnished examples such as parting with fingerprints on property papers, iris/retina scan to apply for visas to foreign countries, breath analysing to ascertain a case of drunk driving, and even DNA testing in case of forensic analysis in criminal cases.

But, as Justice Sikri, one of the two judges in the bench hearing the Aadhaar-PAN mandatory link case, pointed out, in none of the instances are the biometrics stored and connected to each and every facility that the resident/immigrant/citizen would avail to lead a normal life in his/her chosen place.

The coercive application and encroachment of Aadhaar into our ability to lead normal, healthy lives and to enjoy the constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms, is immeasurably greater, something that cannot be allowed to happen or go on in the name of governmental efficiency.

During the Finance Bill, 2017 debate in Lok Sabha in March this year, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley had fleetingly mentioned that DNA is not being ruled out yet from being included as part of the biometrics-based UID.

The repetitive clause “as specified by regulations” ensured that those intentional blanks in the Aadhaar Act legalese could be filled as the government pleases, with rudimentary debate in Parliament and via inconspicuous and insidious gazette notifications.

With AG Rohatgi essentially admitting that for the government, which he represents, bodily integrity isn’t absolute, a legal can of worms could be opened that would further infringe on our personal autonomy and bodily integrity.

What next? Compulsory blood donations? Mandatory vasectomy after 50? Forcing organ donations? Specifying the number of children one can or cannot have? Menstrual scanners in places of worship (as someone had jokingly suggested during the Sabarimala debate)?

And in each of these possible instances, the Aadhaar number would act as the government’s informant, ferrying out unsavoury details about the citizen’s life and laying it all out before an ever more controlling and obsessive State.

Naturally, women, Dalits, transgenders, religious and sexual minorities, who are anyway part of vulnerable and marginalised groups, would be far more susceptible to state policing of bodies and possible discrimination via Aadhaar than upper caste Hindu men, simply because the latter’s entrenched privileges will ensure the least surveillance for themselves.

Dissidents, intellectuals, political challengers, journalists asking tough questions, human rights activists and anybody not on government good books is basically far more vulnerable to state’s coercive practices of indirect control if Aadhaar is made mandatory, one-stop mode of identification.

Turning Aadhaar off at the beck and call of a vindictive government would be the easiest way to have the dissident mired in a digital prison-house minus any accountability.

Turning leaky Aadhaar off

Why is it that the government and the UIDAI want everyone to have Aadhaar but cannot guarantee that the details connected to the UID wouldn’t be a hack away for those with the cyber tricks up their digital sleeves?

Report after report on Aadhaar numbers and associated sensitive details such as bank account number, address, date of birth, photograph, PAN, etc, are being unwittingly leaked from various government websites haven’t caused the least fluster among those singing paeans of the UID.

Only the UIDAI is authorised to take action in case of a security breach, even though complaints keep piling up. And will the UIDAI take action against the government whose websites are leaking confidential Aadhaar data?

This is a security minefield waiting to blow up and yet, both the government and UIDAI are on a massive ego trip to bludgeon us with compulsory Aadhaar.

What happens when Aadhaar is turned off with just an SMS notification to the user? His/her life comes to a grinding halt because s/he’s unable to avail any of the services that have been clandestinely and unconstitutionally linked to Aadhaar.

Suspending or invalidating an Aadhaar number for no fault of the citizen leaves the citizen minus any ability to lead a normal life of work and commercial transactions, without any safety nets, whether online or offline.

In other words, government wants to have the benefit of controlling citizen’s lives and by extension bodies via Aadhaar, but would have none of the responsibility once the edifice starts crumbling, as is already happening.

The government is imposing digital and biometric tyranny on its own citizens, violating human rights and innumerable civil liberties in its bid to have total and absolute control of what we do, where we go, what we buy, how we travel, what we watch, what we eat, what we say, and whom we choose to mingle with.

It’s typical of the patriarchal State to demand that we forfeit our freedom because it guarantees us benefits. But in a constitutional democracy, laws exist to protect the citizen from the tyrannical nature of the State, to see to it that we do not degenerate into textbook totalitarianism in the name of efficiency.

That is why it is crucial that our constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms are not infringed in the pretext of bringing us a stronger government.

Neither a smartphone, not a biometrics-based UID can, however, replace real and effective governance that is in sync with what the citizens want and need, without stepping on their rights.

Hoodwinking the citizenry and turning it into a battalion of 1.3 billion virtual slaves is exactly what is on the cards if the Aadhaar is not discontinued, or at least ensuring that it remains a voluntary proof of identity and nothing more.

"All we have to show for the hundreds of thousands of crore spent on Aadhar is a Congress ticket for Nilekani" Yashwant Sinha.(27/02/2014)

TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer and head of human resources, tweeted: "selling his soul for power; made his money in the company wedded to meritocracy." Money Life Article

Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government - Home Minister Chidambaram

To refer to Aadhaar as an anti corruption tool despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is mystifying. That it is now officially a Rs.50,000 Crores solution searching for an explanation is also without any doubt. -- Statement by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP & Member, Standing Committee on Finance

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement, in an exit interview to this newspaper, that Aadhaar needs to be re-thought completely is probably the last nail in its coffin. :-) Financial Express

The Rural Development Ministry headed byJairam Rameshcreated a road Block and refused to make Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme NRGA unless all residents are covered.

What People Opposed to Aadhaar said:

Aadhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.”

John Dreze,Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, Ex-NAC Member

UID project is full of ambiguity, confusions and suspicions, but no answers -Usha Ramanathan

The Reserve Bank says Aadhaar is not good enough to open a bank account

You can Beat the UID reader with candle wax and Fevicol - J.T.D Souza

The very premise of Aadhar is flawed

It is a certification that those who claim to think on behalf of India or its underprivileged understand it so differently from the beneficiaries they think of.

In a nutshell, Aadhar will not bring about any of the benefits that are intended for its intended beneficiaries. Because that will be solving a problem of governance by adding another layer, that is imaginary and unnecessary.

To call it "technological leadership" is as removed from reality as calling a reader a writer of the book. At best it will mean that we can take a technology and ram it down the throat of the poor while other nations with stronger democratic roots and respect for citizens have not been able to do so for reasons of building consensus.

"Aadhar" is like dropping a car by helicopter in a village where there is no road and hope every villager can reach wherever they may want to go.

For anyone willing to think, Aadhar is a reflection of the huge disconnect that India has from both the world of the under privileged and the rest of the world.

Aadhaar the Last Nail in UPA II's Coffin

"All we have to show for the hundreds of thousands of crore spent on Aadhar is a Congress ticket for Nilekani" Yashwant Sinha.(27/02/2014)

UID NOT UBIQUITOUS ANY LONGER MR. NILEKANI - TRUTH HAS PREVAILED JUST BEFORE THE ELECTIONS.

WhatsApp gained users because it was useful, and people wanted to download and use it. Aadhaar, sadly, cannot be said to have "users" yet. There are as yet few uses. This is why Mr Nilekani has to emphasise the number of enrolments, not the benefits that flow from Aadhaar - because those exist today only in theory. And the simple fact is that enrolments should not be seen as a sign of success. The Only Good Idea - Business Standard

"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer and head of human resources, tweeted: "selling his soul for power; made his money in the company wedded to meritocracy." Money Life Article

The expose shows how citizens of Nepal and Bangladesh are offered Aadhaar cards without identity proof. The sting reveals that even MLAs and gazetted officers sign on the forged documents to make Aadhaar cards. IBN Live

To refer to Aadhaar as an anti corruption tool despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is mystifying. That it is now officially a Rs.50,000 Crores solution searching for an explanation is also without any doubt. -- Statement by Rajeev Chandrasekhar,MP & Member, Standing Committee on Finance

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement, in an exit interview to this newspaper, that Aadhaar needs to be re-thought completely is probably the last nail in its coffin. :-) Financial Express

Please think through before supporting UID/ Aadhaar, so you do not regret your decision.

Emphasising the need for separation of powers, James Madison bluntly observed in his essay, Federalist 51."Because men are not angels," they need government to prevent them, by force when necessary, from invading the lives, property, and liberty of their fellow citizens. He also noted that the same non-angelic men can wield the government’s coercive machinery to use it tyrannically—even in a democracy.

·The Rural Development Ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh created a road Block and refused to make Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme NRGA unless all residents are covered.

·Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government - Home Minister Chidambaram

·AaAdhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.” John Dreze, Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, Ex-NAC Member

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”Mahatma Gandhi

"Protest is not something you delegate, politics is not something you outsource. It is what you stand for literally"Shiv Visvanathan, Indian Express.

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always. "Mahatma Gandhi

"The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are."Mahatma Gandhi

"Let us begin by being clear... about General Smuts' new law. All Indians must now be fingerprinted... like criminals. Men and women. No marriage other than a Christian marriage is considered valid. Under this act our wives and mothers are whores. And every man here is a bastard."-Mahatma Gandhi

"It is easy to laugh at people who fire arrows at helicopter gunships, but on the other hand it is not so easy to defeat people who are willing to fire arrows at helicopter gunships."Vietnam: A War Lost And Won' authored by Nigel Cawthorne

You can fool all the people sometimes,You can fool some people all the time,But you cannot fool all the people all the time.Truth Shall prevail.Satyameva Jayate.

Aadhaar was meant to deduplicate peoples id's and Aadhaar itself is a Duplicate of NPR and needs deduplication according to Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) headed by Secretary Sumit Bose.

Which is the bigger crime a poor family double dipping on PDS to stay alive or Govt wasting mega bucks on a white elephant called Aadhaar ?

Remember Aadhaar is not an ID card but just a Number to authenticate and tell you if you are in fact you and UIDAI will splurge Rs1.5 lakh crores ( Rs 1,500, 000, 000,000 ) in the next five years. What do people with Aadhaar get in return ? A lot of empty promises. It won't take long for people in India to wake up and understand what is going on.

How do we explain Loss of Privacy?Privacy is like our VISION.We will appreciate its loss when we go BLIND.

Massive collection of Video Clips on Unique Identity. Click on this Link http://flotadaslimaymedio.com.ar/tag/unique-identification/orderby-relevance/page1.html

WHAT AM I ?????"Yes, it is voluntary. But the service providers might make it mandatory. In the long run, I wouldn't call it compulsory. I would rather say that it will become ubiquitous"Nandan Nilekani, UIDAI Chairman (Excerpts from a conversation with Sadiq Naqvi and Akash Bisht) Answer: Aadhaar, the Unique Identity number & a Bar Code that each and every Indian will be branded with linked to a National Database maintained by UIDAI, with Help from L1 Identity a US Multinational.

"Opponents of the Aadhaar number have included advocates of privacy rights. The number however, is linked to limited personal information, with no profiling data included. Submitting a father’s name for example, is not required, allowing residents to adopt any name of their choosing and free themselves from caste identification."Nandan Nilekani's personal Opinion1061 - We have your number - OUTLOOK

Do all Indians want to become Numbers and be tracked like animals ?Do we have a Choice ?

IF IT TAKES SIX MONTHS TO ISSUE ONE MILLION NOT SO UINQUE IDENTITIES, HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO ISSUE 600 MILLION OR 1.2 BILLION UNIQUE IDENTITIES ?

WORDS OF WISDOM

“In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”Mahatma Gandhi"I have never known legislation of this nature being directed against free men in any part of the world. I know that indentured Indians in Natal are subject to a drastic system of passes, but these poor fellows can hardly be classed as free men."Mahatma Gandhi"...giving of finger prints, required by the Ordinance, was quite a novelty in South Africa. With a view to seeing some literature on the subject, I read a volume on finger impressions by Mr. Henry, a police officer, from which I gathered that finger prints were required by law only from criminals."Mahatma Gandhi"Democracy was the greatest gift of our freedom struggle to the people of India. Independence made the nation free. Democracy made our people free. A free people are a people who are governed by their will and ruled with their consent. A free people are a people who participate in decisions affecting their lives and their destinies".Rajiv Gandhi “How shall a democracy ensure its secret intelligence apparatus becomes neither a vehicle for conspiracy nor a suppressor of traditional liberties of democratic self-government?”Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Hi-tech without Panchayati Raj is just a bogus stunt for geeks and nerds."Mani Shankar Aiyar, Congress leaderAadhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.”John Dreze, Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, National Advisory Committee Member"It is a Bad Idea to Marry UID with NREGA"Reetika Kehera"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."Ayn Rand “The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy”.Alex Carey, a noted Australian activist."People willing to trade freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."Ben Franklin.Liberty has never come from the government; it has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it."Woodrow Wilson"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".Edmund Burke"Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist".Edmund Burke"Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever computing's snake-oil salesmen claim. No organisation can treat digitised communication as confidential. An electronic secret is a contradiction in terms".Simon Jenkins, Guardian UK“Privacy is not something that people feel, except in its absence. Remove it and you destroy something at the heart of being human.”Phil Booth, National co-ordinator of the campaign No2IDIn reality, Aadhaar intrudes into people's privacy that is hidden under the guise of reaching out.Srijit Mishra

Ten things you must know about UID

Some facts about the UID project that Indian residents should be aware of:

1. Aadhaar (the UID number) is not mandatory. People can choose not to be a part of the exercise.2. It is not restricted to Indian citizens only and is meant for residents of India, irrespective of their citizenship. An Aadhaar card does not establish citizenship of India, it is meant for identification.3. Even people without proper identification documents can apply for Aadhaar. Authorised individuals, who already have an Aadhaar, can introduce residents who don't possess any documents to establish their identity to enable them to receive their Aadhaar.4. Aadhar will not replace other identification documents such as ration card or passport.5. The UIDAI will collect only biometric and demographic information about an individual and will not ask for info on caste, religion or language.6. Date of Birth is optional (for people who don't remember/know their date of birth) and approximate age will suffice.7. Transgenders have been included in the options under gender and they need not classify themselves as male or female.8. Residents of India have an option to link their UID number to their bank accounts.9. To get an UID number residents will have to go to the nearest Aadhaar enrollment camp, details of which will be published in the local media. Residents will have to carry along certain documents, mentioned in the advertisement. Residents will also be photographed and have their fingerprints and iris scanned. The Aadhaar numbers will be issued within 20-30 days.10. The draft National Identification Authority of India bill has provisions against impersonation, providing false information and for protection of personal information collected by the UIDAI. Violations can attract penalties in the form of fines of up to Rs 1 crore and imprisonment extending up to a life term.